This new take on “The Mummy” has nothing to do — except for Egyptian tombs and a monster — with the Brendan Fraser films from a decade and a half ago, and little to do with the grandmummy of them all, the original Boris Karloff film from 1932.

Except for a brief 1127 prologue, it’s contemporary, kicking off its main story first in England, where a subway construction crew has stumbled upon what appears to be an ancient tomb (which might contain “antiquity’s darkest secret”), and then in Iraq, where a couple of rule-bending Army reconnaissance men, Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and Chris Vail (Jake Johnson), plan to “liberate” some precious antiquities (we get that word a lot in this script) from a small desert village that’s filled with insurgents.

But hold on. In between the England and Iraq segments, there’s some detailed narration and a flashback to a long ago story about Princess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella, the metal-footed villain in “Kingsman”) who, feeling cheated out of a future queendom, makes a pact with a demon, is caught by the authorities, and is mummified alive.

The village insurgent thing goes wrong as, initially, does Cruise’s clunky overacting. An air strike saves the two guys, but opens up a gaping maw in the ground, down in which is discovered an Egyptian tomb. But, says visiting archaeologist Dr. Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), this can’t be. There can’t be an Egyptian tomb in Iraq. She sure gets excited, though, when she notices a ritual well at the bottom, filled with mercury and surrounded by warnings against intruders.

But these intruders pay no heed, and despite an onslaught of biting spiders and a large murder of crows showing up, a large sarcophagus found down there is helicoptered away.

Here come those visual effects. Nick starts having crazy visions, causing him to flit in and out of two realities; the sarcophagus is loaded onto a cargo plane; Chris, having been bitten on the neck by a special spider, just isn’t Chris anymore; the crows return; and there’s an absolutely spectacular crash sequence.

It’s then that the protagonists (some are alive, some aren’t, some are in between) start putting pieces together. Those pieces involve an ancient curse, the idea that “we’ve angered the gods,” and the discovery of The Dagger of Set (which, truth be told, is in pieces and has to be put together).

The scary yet alluring Princess Ahmanet, accompanied by roiling swarms of rats, is up and around, creeping her way through the alleys of London, fiercely sucking the life force out of anyone she sees. Her personal mission is to find and hook up with Nick, for purposes of eternal life together. His purposes are to keep running away from her, to save Jenny from the Princess (complete transparency: Jenny was a one-night stand, and she’s got her own secrets to hide), and to figure out if he’s dead or alive.

A second check list: An additional action sequence, now in a speeding truck, that’s as good as the earlier airplane one, the introduction of Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll (yes, THAT Dr. Jekyll) as well as a certain counterpart, and a very quick cameo, among a row of jars in Jekyll’s headquarters, of the clawed and webbed hand of The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The film eventually gets around to an obsession with the concept of evil; Tom Cruise eventually loosens up into the role — I believe this happens after the third time he’s pummeled almost senseless; and everything that could possibly go wrong for these characters in these situations eventually goes wrong.

My favorite part: The appearance of ancient Egyptian zombies, the fast kind, not the slow kind, who prove to be pretty darn good swimmers.